21st of September: it’s been three months.

We left for Italy on the first night of Summer. We arrived in Venice at 1pm. It was hot and we struggled to get to our hotel dragging our bags over the cobblestones and footbridges after we got off at the wrong water taxi stop. After about the third footbridge, I stopped and said “Are we having fun yet?” an exclamation my dad would would always say whenever the situation we were in seemed to be unbearable.About 10 hours later, I was in bed with jet-lag. It was 5:30pm Eastern time. My husband had developed an annoying cough while training for our cycling trip, and I was very worried that the next 10 days exerting himself on the bike were going to give him pneumonia or something worse. About 11:30pm I became overwhelmingly sad. I looked at him and then touched his face. I started to tear up. I was compelled to wake him up. I stopped myself because I knew he needed to rest as much as he could before we began our epic ride through the Dolomites.I decided I must be crazy – what’s wrong with me? Was it my hormones? Anxiety about the upcoming ride? In the end, I calmed myself by counting my blessings. Eventually I fell asleep. We spent the morning walking around Venice. We returned to the hotel about lunchtime to check in with our e-mail. This was the first time I have ever traveled to Europe without a working cell phone. There was an e-mail message from my mom “Call home.” My mom doesn’t e-mail. At 5:30pm the night before (11:30 in Italy) my father passed away while playing hockey. We should all be so lucky to exit as quickly as he did while doing something he loved to do. But my god, we are all stunned. How could he leave us so quickly…so suddenly? I can not begin to explain how bad it felt to be so far away – to be helpless to my family in this terrible situation.We spent the next five hours trying to figure out how we could return to the United States as soon as possible during high season. We took a 5am water taxi, a bus to the airport, a flight to Rome, and then another flight to Detroit where I remained until August 13th.To say that Sammy C. Cupp led an amazingly huge and incredibly complex life is an understatement. He touched so many people. He was a mentor, a connector, an influencer to hundreds – if not thousands of people. I always knew my dad worked a lot, but I didn’t have a true concept of vastness of the impact he made on his community and the people that worked with until after he was gone. My dad saw potential in everyone. He had a way of helping people set goals and obtain them. He was always thinking creatively and helped many, many people connect the dots and achieve success in their lives. Dad was never boastful. He was a very humble man. He was remarkable. We had an incredible funeral for him.There was no question I wanted to be in Michigan to grieve with my mom this Summer. It made no sense to be anywhere else. I did my best to be there to help her sort through her affairs. Three months later, I still want to be there. I feel helpless being so far away.Forty nights after he passed away, we headed North to the lake house for a few days of rest before I traveled back to New York City. The day after we arrived in Northern Michigan, I fell ill with what felt like the flu. Three days after that, I was dehydrated, feverish and still couldn’t keep food down. I was admitted to the hospital just after midnight and I remained there for 7 days. At one point I had a fever of 107. My liver started not working properly. The enzyme count was off and my gallbladder didn’t look good either. They decided it must be a virus. They tested me for just about everything and never came to a conclusion. Eventually, my symptoms subsided and they released me under out-patient care.Two blood tests and three days later, I was cleared by the Doctor to fly. We returned to New York City were we moved out of the apartment. Our city apartment furnishings are piled up in the barn and throughout our house in Connecticut. During the week in New York City, we’re sleeping in the spare bedroom belonging to a friend while we sort everything out. My dad passing has been a life changing milestone in our lives. It has left us questioning our priorities. If life isn’t about being with family -then really- what is it all about?The three months since he passed away have been the longest three months of my life. My nervous system feels raw. The physical pain of grief has been so intense that if I didn’t know better that it’s the sadness that is causing the aches – I’d be at the doctor getting checked out practically every other day. (It’s likely why I fell ill and ended up in the hospital.) I am full of grief, sadness, shock and disbelief. Heck, it’s taken me three months to bring myself to log into wordpress to even tell you what happened.To be totally honest, I’m not sure when I will feel up for blogging on a regular basis again – perhaps when I am back to flower arranging, meal preparation, decorating and normal life activities again? In the last few months, I have been doing a bit of Twitter and posting glimpses of life via Instagram. Please feel free to follow along there until I pick up blogging speed again. Thanks for your understanding during this difficult time of transition for my family and I. xx

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Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo (ABCD!) is an artist, floral designer and interior stylist who splits her time between New York City and the hills of Litchfield County. ABCD's motto is simple: Life is short, eat off the good china!